Super id Software Pack

RAGE 1.2 Patch Release Notes--------------------------------------------------------------------This RAGE patch adds some new features and addresses various compatibility and performance issues.

New Functionality------------------------Texture Detail: Enabling Texture Detail will improve up-close texture quality by performing upsampling with adaptive sharpening. This does not update or increase the resolution of the base textures included with the game but improves the perceived resolution and crispness of textures. This is an intensive operation and is only recommended if you have a quad-core CPU or higher. Please disable this feature if you encounter poor performance, stability issues or are given a notification that the game has run out of memory after loading a map. The Texture Detail option can be found in the Settings -> Video Menu.

Transcode Benchmark: A new benchmark has been added that determines how quickly texture data can be translated from the compressed format on your hard drive to a format that can be used by your video card. The higher your score, the faster your PC is able to make higher detail texture data available. This is not a traditional benchmark that runs through a scene of the game and returns a min/max/average framerate based on hardware and video settings. Other than the GPU Transcode option, the score will not be affected by changing any video settings. The Transcode Benchmark option can be found in the Settings -> Video Menu.

Error Messaging: If you attempt to apply video settings on a system that is not capable of handling them, an error may come up stating that your system ran out of memory. You will be allowed to continue, however, it is recommended that you either reduce your video settings until this message no longer occurs or you will be asked to restart the game with lower video settings. If you ignore this error and continue playing without altering your settings you will likely encounter texture corruption and/or system instability.

Automatic Video Settings Fallbacks: When an advanced video setting fails to apply, the setting may be set back to a safe default. Anti-aliasing will fall back to NONE if the allocation of a multi-sampled FBO fails. Texture Cache will fall back to SMALL when the allocation of a large texture cache fails. Texture Detail will fall back to OFF when large page table allocations fail. On failure, these settings will automatically fall back to safe values without the need for user input.

Patch Changes / Fixes------------------------------ Fixed crash from potentially having stale transcode jobs in flight when switching between texture cache sizes.- Fixed crash from using SIMD optimized memcpy with a PBO pointer that is not 16-byte aligned.- Fixed GPU transcode option always turning off when restarting the game.- Fixed progression in Dead City where player could not advance through sliding door en route to the defibrillator upgrade.- Fixed CPU feature detection.- Fixed issues with launching MP by using double quotes around path name.- Fixed lack of texture detail on parts of the screen at high resolutions due to limited feedback analysis buffer.- Fixed thread stack space usage and freed up 700 MB of virtual address space.- Re-enabled UBOs.- Adjustments to default VDM values for balance.

RAGE defaults to lower video settings to allow the game to work on awide variety of hardware and software configurations.Unfortunately, it is not possible to anticipate all possible graphicsdriver issues in combination with unique end user hardware and softwareconfigurations. For this reason RAGE does not automatically increasevideo/graphics settings as this could result in negative side effectson specific hardware and software configurations. The original releaseof RAGE does not expose many video/graphics options for people to tweakbecause some of these settings, although desirable from a qualityperspective, simply will not work on specific configurations either dueto hardware limitations and/or driver bugs. Due to popular demand formore video and graphics options, this patch updates the video settingsmenu and exposes several quality and performance settings. However, noteveryone may be able to increase the settings due to hardware limitationsand/or driver bugs.

VSync-----

The new "VSync" option in the video settings menu allows you to removescreen tearing. There are three options: ON, OFF and SMART.

When VSync is turned OFF you may experience screen tearing.

When VSync is turned ON you should not see screen tearing. However,any time your frame rate drops below 60 frames per second you willget a sudden more severe drop to 30 frames per second. This is how VSyncinherently works. If your computer cannot maintain 60 frames persecond and you miss the synchronization to the vertical retrace ofyour monitor then you will miss a whole frame and synchronize tothe next frame instead.

Some graphics drivers now support a so called "swap-tear" extension.You can try using this extension by setting VSync to SMART.If your graphics driver supports this extension and you set VSyncto SMART then RAGE will synchronize to the vertical retrace ofyour monitor when your computer is able to maintain 60 frames persecond and the screen may tear if your frame rate drops below 60 framesper second. In other words the SMART VSync option trades a sudden dropto 30 frames per second with occasional screen tearing. Occasionalscreen tearing is usually considered less distracting than a moresevere drop in frame rate.

If your graphics driver does not support SMART VSync and you set VSyncto SMART in the video settings then RAGE will automatically fall back toturning VSync OFF and you may experience screen tearing. The "swap-tear"extension is brand new and may still present some issues on certaingraphics hardware. If you experience any problems using SMART Vsyncthen set VSync to either ON or OFF. We are actively working with thegraphics hardware vendors to improve the "swap-tear" extension.

If changing VSync in the RAGE video settings menu does not appear tomake any difference then make sure you are not overriding the VSyncsetting in the graphics vendor control panel. You can find thegraphics vendor control panel by right-clicking on the Windows desktopand selecting the " control panel" option from the pop-up menu.

If you force VSync to the 'on' setting in the graphics vendor controlpanel then you should not see any screen tearing in RAGE but you mayget a more severe drop in frame rate if your computer cannot maintain60 frames per second.

If you force VSync to the 'off' setting in the graphics vendor controlpanel then you may experience screen tearing no matter what setting youuse for the VSync option in the RAGE video settings menu.

If the Texture Cache is set to LARGE then RAGE will keep more texturedata in video memory. This may not only significantly reduce blurrytextures and texture popping, it will also allow complex scenes to berendered with more texture detail.

However, this may not work on computers that do not have enough systemor video memory, or you may experience a significant drop in performance.If you experience issues due to hardware limitations you will have to setthe Texture Cache back to SMALL.

If after changing the Texture Cache to LARGE you experience a crash ortexture corruption (like a partially or completely blue world) thenthe graphics driver may have run out of memory.

We are actively working with the graphics card vendors to resolveany crashes.

If you do not experience a crash but you see texture corruption then youmay be able to get the large Texture Cache to work by accepting the changeand restarting the game. If you still experience texture corruption afterrestarting the game you will have to set the Texture Cache back to SMALL.

You may also be able to improve the memory situation on your computer bychanging the Windows paging file management. Note that making changes tothe Windows paging file management may change the performance characteristicsof your computer. Any changes you make to your system configuration areat your own risk. Always make backups of your system and revert thesechanges if you notice undesirable side effects.

To change the paging file management on Windows Vista and Windows 7, firstpress the "Start" button, then right-click on "Computer" and then select"Properties" from the popup menu. Then select "Advanced system settings"on the window that appears. Select the "Advanced" tab on the"System Properties" window that is displayed and press the "Settings"button under "Performance". Select the "Advanced" tab on the"Performance Options" window that shows up next and press the"Change..." button under "Virtual memory". Now uncheck the option"Automatically manage paging file size for all drives" and makesure that the option "System managed size" is selected on the"Virtual Memory" window. Confirm the change by pressing the "OK" buttonon each window. After making this change you will have to restart yourcomputer for the change to take effect.

To change the paging file management on Windows XP, first press the"Start" button, then right-click on "My Computer" and then select"Properties" from the popup menu. Select the "Advanced" tab on the"System Properties" window that is displayed and press the "Settings"button under "Performance". Select the "Advanced" tab on the"Performance Options" window that shows up next and press the "Change"button under "Virtual memory". Make sure that the option"System managed size" is selected on the "Virtual Memory" window.Confirm the change by pressing the "OK" button on each window.After making this change you will have to restart your computer forthe change to take effect.

Anisotropic Filter------------------

The new "Anisotropic Filter" option in the video settings menu allowsyou to increase the anisotropic texture filtering.

Anisotropic filtering is a method to enhance the image quality oftextures on surfaces that are at oblique viewing angles.

The anisotropic texture filtering in RAGE defaults to a low value toaccommodate for low-end graphics hardware. However, the anisotropicfiltering can be increased for high-end graphics hardware by settingthe Anistropic Filter option to HIGH in the video settings menu.

Do not force anisotropic filtering to the on setting in the graphicsvendor control panel because this may cause rendering artifacts inthe game.

Note that increasing the anisotropic filtering may improve thetexture quality while it may also decrease the frame rate.

Patch Changes / Fixes---------------------

- Implemented workaround for AMD driver crash right after intro cinematic on Win 7 32-bit systems.- Disabled UBOs because they are causing animation issues with AMD drivers.- Don't allow swap-tear to be enabled on AMD while the extension is not exposed because it may crash.- Support for new video settings: "texture cache", "vsync" and "anisotropic filter"- Automatically adjust vt_maxPPF based on the number of available cores.- Improved performance for SLI cards when GPU transcode is enabled.- Fix for GPU Transcoding option being disabled after exiting gameplay.- Added safe mode to restore video settings to default values.- Allow g_fov to be changed from the RAGE launch options in Steam.- Server now forwards text chat from clients to all other clients while in-game.

Known Graphical Issues----------------------

The following issues were found using NVIDIA graphics hardware withthe GeForce R285 Driver or AMD graphics hardware with the AMD Catalyst11.10 Version 2 Preview Driver.

- If you turn up both the screen resolution and anti-aliasing settings to high values in the video settings menu and/or you enable "GPU Transcode" then the screen may no longer update on some hardware configurations. This means your system does not have the necessary video memory to run with these high settings. You can re-enter the video settings menu and lower your settings to restart screen updates.

- If you turn up both the screen resolution and anti-aliasing settings to high values in the video settings menu you may experience a crash if your system does not have the necessary memory to run with these high settings. To avoid this problem you will have to re-enter the video settings menu to lower the settings. If you can no longer launch the game after changing the video settings to high values you can add the following to your RAGE launch options in Steam:

+com_safemode 1

The launch options can be found by right-clicking on RAGE in Steam and selecting "Properties". Then click on "Set Launch Options" in the dialog that pops up. Adding this option will reset your video settings to the default values the next time the game is launched. When the game is launched in safe mode the game will show "safe mode" in the corners of the screen. Do not forget to remove the safe mode launch option after launching the game once to make sure you do not lose your video settings each time you launch the game.

- Using a NVIDIA graphics card on Windows XP 32-bit or XP 64-bit, you may experience a crash or hang when changing the screen resolution in full screen mode or switching from windowed mode to full screen mode. This has been identified as a graphics driver problem. We have spent significant effort trying to work around this problem and were successful in reducing the frequency of occurrence but a driver update is necessary to completely fix the problem. We are actively working with NVIDIA to make a solution to this problem available as soon as possible.

- Using an AMD graphics card, you may experience black flickering artifacts on flags, banners and zip-lines if you run in full screen mode. This has been identified as a graphics driver problem. We are actively working with AMD on a solution to this problem.

- Using an AMD graphics card, you may experience black grid lines on some graphical user interface (GUI) elements like the in-game mini-map. This has been identified as a graphics driver problem. We are actively working with AMD on a solution to this problem. If you find the grid lines particularly distracting, you can add the following to the RAGE launch options in Steam as a temporary workaround.

+vt_maxAniso 1

The launch options can be found by right-clicking on RAGE in Steam and selecting "Properties". Then click on "Set Launch Options" in the dialog that pops up. However, note that adding this setting will lower the general texture quality in the game.

- If you have an AMD graphics card with a dual core CPU system you may experience severe hitching and low frame rates. This has been identified as a driver problem. We are actively working with AMD on a solution to this problem. As a temporary workaround you may add the following to the RAGE launch options in Steam:

+jobs_numThreads 0

The launch options can be found by right-clicking on RAGE in Steam and selecting "Properties". Then click on "Set Launch Options" in the dialog that pops up.

- If you are running RAGE in full-screen mode and you ALT-TAB to a different application you may lose your VSync setting. When you switch to a different application VSync stops functioning. RAGE detects that VSync is no longer working and automatically switches back to synchronizing to real-time to make sure the game time advances in a consistent manner. We are actively working with the graphics vendors on a solution to this problem.